On Sept. 15, 2017, the West Garage (W45), located on Vassar Street across from the Johnson Athletic Center and Steinbrenner Stadium, is scheduled to close in preparation for the construction of a new undergraduate residence hall on the site. The garage is expected to remain available on a limited basis through mid-November for special events and athletic events. In late fall and early winter, the construction project team will conduct exploratory work and will prepare the structure for demolition, which is slated to take place in early 2018.
To accommodate MIT permit holders who currently use the roughly 370 parking spaces in the West Garage, the Parking and Transportation Office has developed a solution based on assigning permit holders to other parking areas on campus and incorporating a new Attendant Assist parking program at Stata Garage.
Permit renewal process opens June 30
On June 30, the parking permit renewal process will open for the 2017-2018 year. Permit holders who were assigned to the West Garage for the previous year will now be assigned to a new parking area. These parking areas will include Northwest, Northeast (Stata), Riverside, and North. When individuals log into the parking site through Atlas to renew their permits, the new assignments will already be entered into the system.
“The Parking and Transportation team has reviewed parking assignments carefully,” says Tom Giannino, operations manager for the Parking and Transportation Office. “For each individual, we assessed the proximity from parking area to office with the goal of minimizing walking distances as much as possible.”
Currently, West Garage is used frequently for athletic events and special events parking, and the garage will remain available for these uses through mid-November. Starting at the end of November, the Albany Garage will become the primary parking facility for athletic events and special events, supplemented by Northwest area lots.
Launching the Attendant Assist program at Stata Garage
With the goal of keeping parkers closer to their offices, the team is planning to increase the availability of parking in Stata Garage by introducing the Attendant Assist program. This program is being implemented at Stata to allow more parkers access to a centrally located garage.
Once the regular parking spaces in Stata are all full, parkers — with assistance from a customer service representative (CSR) and parking attendants — will be directed to park in aisle spaces and will leave their keys with the attendants. Keys will be stored in a locked box at each aisle, and attendants will move cars as needed to assist parkers moving in and out of spaces. The process will be overseen by an on-site supervisor.
During the recent renovation of Building E70 at 1 Broadway, the Attendant Assist program was employed successfully to manage parking spaces in the E70 garage and keep the garage available to parkers during construction. The program at Stata is expected to benefit from the experience of the team managing this solution.
Evolving commuter options for an evolving campus
As part of the Kendall Square project, a new underground parking garage is scheduled to open in 2020, adding 500 parking spaces back into the inventory. In the meantime, as MIT moves forward with enhancements to the campus to meet research and residential needs, the Parking and Transportation Office and Office of Campus Planning will continue to seek more options for members of the community as they navigate to and from the campus.
“Our goal is to ease the burden on our parkers as much as possible,” says John DiFava, director of campus services and chief of police at MIT. “We’re implementing a solution that has met with success elsewhere, and we will adapt the program once we observe how it is working for our community.”
This past year, the Parking and Transportation Office, in partnership with the MIT Office of Sustainability and the MIT Transit Lab, launched the Access MIT program, a suite of enhanced commuter benefits designed to encourage sustainable transportation practices. Access MIT makes it easier for MIT community members to seek lower-carbon transportation options, such as commuting by bike or via public transportation instead of by car, supporting MIT’s goal of reducing parking demand on campus 10 percent by 2018. The program provides eligible employees with benefits such as free MBTA subway and local bus passes, commuter rail subsidies, and subsidies for parking at MBTA stations. To date, Access MIT has succeeded in reducing parking demand on campus by almost 5 percent.
MIT individuals with questions about the parking program may contact the Parking and Transportation Office at mitparking@mit.edu or 617-258-6510.
